


sucker love [heaven sent]

by monovosa



Series: every you every me [1]
Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-03
Updated: 2015-09-06
Packaged: 2018-04-18 19:21:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4717541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monovosa/pseuds/monovosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>your soulmate’s name is etched on your body, scratched like a wound that won’t heal. your name isn’t anywhere to be found. not on anybody, and certainly not on her.</p><p>["your soulmate's name is written..." prompt, but with a twist.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Laura

**Author's Note:**

> title is from placebo's "every me every you." two chapters, no beta, have fun. i certainly did.

You follow mummy’s orders to the line, packing your bag full of clothes you assume are still in fashion and boarding the train at sunset. Silas is forever away and you have to be there before dawn.

You barely make it, the sun creeping around the edges of your vision and harrying at your skin until you’re itching, nails freshly painted from the train ride, scratching deep into your skin and then again after it heals. You ignore the stares of passers-by, just another crazy girl with blood under her nails and shadows under her eyes, your bag slung over your shoulder as you trudge toward the ugly towers that mark your new would-be home.

You don’t keep _homes_ anymore. You haven’t in over two hundred years. You can barely stand a train ride, much less the idea of creating someplace with solid walls in which you actually reside. The thought makes you shiver, makes you want to vomit. You scratch harder and scale the staircase as fast as you can, the light nipping at your heels as it races you to the top floor.

The door of your dorm room gives way easily enough when you snick the key in, hand carelessly wrenching and then shoving the door till it bangs against the wall. You wince- you’re sensitive, of course, all of your kind is- but school your face in case your roommate is here.

Maman warned you that you would have a roommate. You assume the roommate will be fodder, which is _fine_ , but you still don’t want her to see you pouting at the damned door. You have a reputation to uphold, even if it’s only for a little while.

And anyway, she is here. The roommate. She’s seated at her desk until the door goes _wham_ and then she’s up like a rocket, hand clenching at her heart.

“ _Jesus_.”

“Not quite.”

She gulps down a breath- humans, so adorable- and moves forward on shaky, slow feet, as though afraid you might bite. Wise girl. A hand goes out, less shaky. Not so wise. You stare it down.

“Laura. You must be Carmilla.”

Your heart stutters to a stop- or at least it would have, if it still beat. As it is, you actually trip over your own feet and nearly plow into the frame of one of the beds, your bag flying forward out of your hands. _Laura_ clumsily ducks the bag and it smashes into what can only be her bed, as covered in cheerful colours and smelling so freshly of sleeping human as it is. You curse.

“Fucking- what?”

“What?”

You glare at her because you need her to repeat her _name_ , not your fucking question.

“What did you say your name was?”

“Laura,” she says, eyeing you like maybe you’re crazy. And maybe you are, because you could swear that the name that’s slashed across the middle of your sternum starts to _burn_. “And you’re Carmilla.”

You might be. You must be. You’re never sure what Maman is going to name you next, but Carmilla will do. Carmilla, which is an ugly-ass name if you’ve ever heard one, doesn’t seem to bother Laura in the slightest. She doesn’t seem nearly as perturbed by the name as she does by you, and you gulp down the air that you don’t actually need to breathe before responding.

“Whatever. Sure thing.”

She stares at you as you unpack your meager belongings, not saying a word. You’re satisfied with that.

(You resist the urge to go to the bathroom to find a mirror so you can watch yourself trace the name that once seemed foreign, seemed fake, seemed _hopeful_ , because three hundred years ago you’d never heard of such a name and you thought surely, you could never mistake her for someone else. This exquisitely named girl, this precious piece of you.

How wrong you were. How young. How human. How _stupid_.)

* * *

 

 _Laura_ , as it turns out, is kind of a dolt.

She spends the first two weeks of your residency kind of hovering around your edges, face perpetually pinched as she tries to contain herself. She’s not very good at it and it takes her all of four hours on your first full day to wake you up with a question.

“So, where are you from?”

“Somewhere where people sleep in fucking peace,” you snap, and flip over so that you can yank the covers over your head. Laura huffs and you can hear her stomp over to her computer like the petulant child that she is, her fingers taking up a fierce staccato a few seconds after. Good. Let her write a novel or a blog rant or whatever the hell. You don’t care.

You just want to _sleep_.

* * *

 

She leaves you alone after a few more failed attempts, more or less. She still bugs you with inane questions from time to time- _How was class?_ as though that’s where you’ve been- but mostly she lapses into silence unless her friends are there. They’re a load of precious work too, a seemingly endless stream of bumbling redheads in varying stages of infatuation, two of them with each other’s names scrawled across their wrists. The big one doesn’t have a visible name and you wonder briefly if she too has _Laura_ ripped in somewhere.

The thought makes you sick. You _hate_ that bitch from the moment the thought occurs to you.

She stops coming around as frequently after you finally bite into her in a fit of rage. You don’t actually bite her, _of course_ , but she’s mooning over Laura who’s giggling like trees posing as humans are actually funny or whatever and you just lose your cool. You fling insult after insult at the irksome giant and a choice one or two at Laura, who sits dumbfounded as the big stupid ugly stands up and sputters about how she doesn’t deserve this shit.

So she gets the message and stops coming around so much. Or maybe it’s that Laura spends less time in the room, choosing instead to be around people who aren’t a constant pain in her ass. Whatever.

You get a lot of reading done. You wait for Maman’s orders. You seethe.

* * *

 

The orders come a month into your forced residency. Surprisingly enough, you don’t need to feed Laura to anyone: your chest feels like it’s caving in when she tells you as much. The burning starts up again, a wildfire between your breasts.

“What, that human? Honestly, Mircalla, I thought you were clever.”

You are, but you don’t bother correcting her. She tells you something about a local chapter of shape shifters that you need to help her intimidate for a while longer, adds in that maybe you can sacrifice one once a few more of them back off the territory line. You shrug and nod and hum at the appropriate parts, eyes and mind unfocused.

You’ll be here for a few more months, Maman explains. Try not to fuck it up.

“I never do,” you say as you stand to leave. You both know it’s a lie. Her eyebrow quirks up and suddenly you can smell the dirt outside, sharp and terrifying, and you bite back the urge to vomit on the very expensive-looking rug Maman has deemed fit to grace the hardwood flooring of her office. “Let me know when you need me.”

* * *

 

She calls you here and there, but the work is far easier than most things she’s had you attend to over the span of your lifetime. You read more books, you punch some shifters in the face, you stew over your stupid roommate. Life is fairly normal.

Except- sometimes when you’re sleeping or pretending to be asleep (you draw the covers over your head so your roommate can’t see that you can read in the dark, book propped narrowly against your forearm and mattress), you can hear Laura making sounds. Whimpering sounds, sometimes, and heavy breathing others. The first time it happened, you thought maybe she was relieving stress. You were almost proud.

“Really got all that anger out last night, didn’t you, roomie? Or- maybe it wasn’t anger. Figured out your feelings for the Jolly Red Giantess?”

She blinks at you for a moment before her eyes go hard in a way you’ve never seen. It’d be intimidating if she wasn’t, you know, a human.

“Oh, really nice, _Carmilla_ ,” she snaps, ponytail whipping around as she glares at you. “Really _cute_ , making fun of somebody in pain.”

Now you’re the one blinking, staring after her as she marches out of the door without her books for her next class. Pain?

She returns thirty seconds later, ears burning red and heart beating angrily enough that you can hear it. Your mouth waters against your will as you watch her collect her psychology text.

“Seriously, you’re such a- _bitch_.”

She leaves again and you’re more confused as ever. You swallow and rub your hand against your chest. Her name- no, not _her_ name, somebody else’s name that just happens to be spelled the same, somebody else who’s probably been dead for two hundred fifty years or more- flinches deeper into your skin.

* * *

 

You don’t talk about it for two days. You sleep as much as you can when she’s there and read Vonnegut when she’s not. He’s new, young too in a way you can’t help but grimace at, but he gets you in a way that sometimes the classics don’t.

 _So it goes_.

* * *

 

“What did you mean, you’re in pain? Do you- do you need to see a doctor, or something?”

Laura nearly drops her idiotic mug at the sound of your voice. Or at the question, maybe, and you can’t blame her. You’ve never actually asked her a question before that didn’t involve teasing her or berating her friends.

She gingerly sets the mug down before answering like she’s afraid she’ll drop the damn thing.

“I just- this is stupid, LaF swears it’s not supposed to happen and they _want_ me to see a doctor, but I really think it’s just because I’m taking forever-”

LaF is the science-y one, you think. You shift and pick lint off your shorts. “So see a doctor. About whatever’s wrong.”

“My name burns,” she blurts, and your head snaps up so you can meet her eyes. You don’t mean to react at all, but you do. “I mean, not _my_ name. My other’s name.”

“Soulmate,” you supply on autopilot. Laura blinks.

“That’s oddly sentimental. Y’know, for you.”

You shrug and refuse to look away, refuse to back down. “Mine is dead.”

Slowly, as though walking through water, she covers the distance of the room and sits down next to you, uninvited. You tense as she reaches out and then thinks better of it, her hand settling next to yours on the blanket that covers your mattress.

“I’m so sorry, Carmilla.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Did you meet him?”

A breath rips in and out of your dead lungs, half a wheeze, half a laugh. You don’t bother to correct her. “Not to my knowledge.”

“ _God_ ,” she whispers, and the hand not holding her weight so close to you rubs the top of her own thigh, fingers digging into the cloth of her jeans. “This is so fucked up.”

That gets an actual laugh from you and you meet her eyes for a second- she’s so close, you can see a flake of mascara on the round of her cheek, the pits and craters in the iris of her eye. “You said it, cupcake. You definitely said it.” And, after a pause, because it seems right- “Sorry yours hurts, too.”

* * *

 

Laura is definitely a dolt because it takes her a whole day to realize what you said.

“Yours burns too?” She asks, voice quivering. She leaves immediately after you bob your head in a slow nod.

Your chest aches all night. You don’t sleep at all.

* * *

 

Time passes. The leaves change like you’ve seen them do a thousand times and before you know it, they’ve fallen to the ground. Another blink and a dusting of snow covers them, a wet grave that masks the smell of rot from your sensitive nose. Laura watches the progress every now and then one Friday evening, looking up from her homework. You look up from your book whenever she does so. It’s a routine you’re strangely comfortable with, one you allow yourself without punishment.

“Do you think she’s dead?”

You shake your head a little to break the stare that was tracing the curve of Laura's shoulder, hidden under the wool of her jumper. She's still looking out the window at the spiraling flakes of snow.

“Who?”

“My other,” Laura says, so softly that you’re not sure you’d catch it if you were human. “My soulmate.”

You breathe in deep, and then chastise yourself. Stupid. Unnecessary. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know? What about the burning?” Laura flips her hair over her shoulder to look at you and you run your tongue over the point of your teeth, feeling the prick of your canines like a lover’s spine. “Isn’t that how you knew that he…?”

“That’s not how I knew, cutie.” You bite those canines down on your tongue and lift up your book- Wollstonecraft this time, because why the hell not- to signal the end of the conversation. For once, Laura takes the hint and shuts up.

* * *

 

You get in a particularly bad scrap at the end of January, just before classes begin.

You don’t know what gets you worse; the bite from a shifted tiger, or the wallop Maman packs when she’s mad that you’ve lost her another twenty feet in territory. You try not to think about either as you hobble back, the occasional fleck of clotted blood falling onto the snow as you make your way across the campus.

Fucking shifters.

Fucking _mothers_.

 _Fucking fuck_.

Laura is gone with the ginger Ent, or at least she’s supposed to be, so you bang your way into your room without a care and nearly kill Laura when she screams.

“ _Don’t-_ ” you hiss, somewhat less effectively than when you’re at full strength and not bleeding onto the Christmas-themed welcome mat that Laura insisted you put in the room- “ _yell like that_.”

It’s not your most acidic comeback to Laura’s idiocy, but then, you’re losing what precious food you managed to contain all over the damn place and you’ve had a pretty bad night. Laura looks ready to rip you a new one when she notices the pool of blood that’s handily gathering around your feet.

“I- holy _shit_ , Carm, what the hell _happened_? Come here, let me-”

She’s ushering you (with plenty of protests from you, thanks very much) over to her chair and into a seated position, the movement jarring the ribs you’re pretty sure the tiger splintered. Your coat is off in a second, your hat following, and she’s pawing at your shirt like some uncoordinated teenager when you realize what she’s doing.

“ _No._ ”

“Carmilla, I need to see-”

“I said fuck off, Hollis. _Fuck off!_ ”

You’ve never really yelled at her before- she’s the yeller in this relationship, and you prefer a low, deadly tone for conveying your hatred anyway- but now you’re screaming, your hands flailing in an attempt to keep her away from the puncture wounds in your side and the much more worrisome scar that’ll be revealed if your shirt comes off. It’s low enough that even a vee neck won’t reveal what is apparently your greatest secret, but one look at you in a bra (or less) and you’re finished.

“Easy, Carmilla, easy. I’m backing off.”

She’s holding up her hands and actually backing away like some sort of loser, footsteps slow and eyes on the trickle of blood that’s coming from beneath the shirt. You know it looks bad and you’re feeling pretty woozy, but a few swigs from your soy carton and you’ll be right as rain. You just can’t bear the thought of her seeing your chest.

“Get me the carton.” She gives you a blank stare. Typical. “In the fridge, dimwit.”

She has the audacity to roll her eyes at you- what part of this isn’t screaming emergency?- but goes and fetches the carton anyway. You can hear the blood sloshing around inside and you grasp at it like a starving man, your nostrils flaring once she removes the cap and the smell hits you.

You drink the whole thing in one go and only wrench your lips away from the source once the carton is empty. You pant, your eyes closing for a moment as you feel your stomach churn and your skin ripple to life. You can feel the blood flow slow, then staunch entirely, and Laura’s eyes are on you the whole time.

“What?” You laze, suddenly sleepy, your eyelids peeling back so you can meet her gaze. She’s staring at your mouth.

Which- must be red right now. With blood. Which you clearly just drank by the half gallon, and is helping you stitch your skin back together without any actual stitches. Right.

“So I’m a-”

“LaF was right,” she says simply, shaking her head with a small smile as though you’re some kind of wonder instead of a monster from hell. “Well, that answers a lot of questions.”

You bark a laugh at that and groan when it pulls at your ribs. Laura jerks forward at the sound, one hand extending back toward your side, but your glare stops her short.

“Easy does it, sunshine. Let me heal.”

She backs up again, settling on her bed and crossing her legs underneath her. She takes a deep breath.

"So... what exactly can mess up a freakin' badass vampire this badly?"


	2. Carmilla

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> many thanks to all of you for your wonderful feedback. turns out there's no way i'll get this done in two chapters, so keep an eye out for part three. in the meantime, feedback is very much appreciated.
> 
> my sincerest thanks to the incredible [bellatores](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Bellatores/pseuds/Bellatores), who proved a knowledgeable and hilarious beta. kill all your darlings, indeed.

You sleep in fits and starts.

 

You heal.

 

Your time spent conscious isn’t really conscious at all: you wake in the night and just as soon as you can reach out, a carton is pressed into your hand. You drink thirstily, your body desperate for the nourishment, eyes slipping shut the moment the carton is taken away from you again.

 

On the second day (or maybe the third, it’s hard to tell when your blackout drapes have been drawn the entire time), you sit up in bed. The carton wavers in front of you but you push it away, determined to drag your aching body away from the mess of blankets and pillows that have ensconced you for untold hours. Laura watches you, quiet and hovering, as you stand.

 

“Hey, cupcake,” you say, your voice rusty. “What’d I miss?”

 

The smile that she gives you is almost painfully wide.

 

“Danny broke down the door because she thought you killed me.”

 

You’re pretty impressed with yourself for sleeping through that. You’re significantly less impressed with Danny dearest. “Idiot.”

 

“She was just _worried_ , Carmilla. We all were.”

 

You scoff at that. “She wasn’t worried about me.”

 

“Well… no, but _I_ was, and Perry and LaF were too.”

 

You pause in your awkward shuffle over to your dresser, the cracked ribs and punctured skin on your side barely protesting. Ah, the miracle of un-life.

 

“Thanks,” you murmur. Laura might be batshit crazy and annoying to boot, but she took the whole thing pretty damn well, all things considered. “Next time, though, you can just leave the blood by the bed so Girlzilla doesn’t damage her few remaining brain cells bashing her way in here.”

 

“Carmilla.” Laura’s voice is hardly a whisper. “We’re glad you’re safe.”

 

You can’t see how that could be. The ache in your side fades in comparison to that in your chest.

 

* * *

 

 

Thankfully, worry doesn’t turn Perry and LaF into clinging weirdos. Laura’s always kind of been a weirdo so you brush her off as effectively as you did before you ruined her Christmas welcome mat. Sure, she stocks your blood supply up a couple times without asking (and really, it’s a testament to the fucking strange-ass place you pretend to go to university, that a human can even _get_ blood in this quantity without significant trouble). You might replenish her cookie supply during midterms because you know she’d have your head from the stress alone (“hangry” becomes the most relevant term you’ve learned this century).

 

It’s nothing revolutionary. It’s practically just survival. She feeds you so you don’t eat her. You feed her so she doesn’t stake you. Everybody wins.

 

Everybody eventually turns out to exclude _you_ , though, because one day Maman pulls you back into her office with its overwhelming lavishness and just a tinge of the smell of suffocation. She’s mad at you (again) because you let some territory go (again). She stands behind her desk with her fingers steepled against the dark stain of the wood and you try your best to hold her gaze. You’re doing better than you would’ve a century ago, but not by much.

 

“If this continues, I might just have to sacrifice that roommate of yours after all. I bet she tastes _sweet_.”

 

You know she’s baiting you, _you know she is baiting you_ , but everything inside of you revolts and you break eye contact with a flinch. The smile that creeps along her lips makes your chest muscles seize in panic. You wonder if it’s possible to strangle without hands around your neck.

 

“Interesting.”

 

She dismisses you with a wave of her hand. You run like the coward you are.

 

* * *

 

Somehow, you get roped into a Floor Activity.

 

Except it’s really not a floor activity if it’s just you, Laura, the wonder twins, and Xena. You point this out within the first few minutes and the conversation just rolls right over your protests like they’re nothing. The debate is on: should Pitch Perfect go on the floor’s projection screen, or is it too soon to watch Step Up again?

 

You almost fracture an eye socket, your eyes roll so hard. Laura puts you in charge of gathering blankets for everyone to share on the couch.

 

“I’m not sitting there,” you tell her plainly as you hold out the stack of cloth and eye the miniscule space that she’s patting.

 

“I saved you the end spot, Carmilla. Everyone knows that’s the best place to be.”

 

“More like the anti-social freak place to be,” Danny mutters, settled in on Laura’s other side and looking like she might throw a hissy fit.

 

“ _Danny_.”

 

“ _Dinosaur_ ,” you add, and now Laura’s glaring at you too. Whatever. “Fine. Budge over, I’m not spooning you.”

 

Laura rolls her eyes, but shifts. “This would hardly count as _spooning_ ,” she sighs. “This wouldn’t even count as _friendship_.”

 

You agree and watch as she leans over Danny to hand Perry a blanket for her and LaF to share. Her shorts ride up as she does so and your eyes are drawn to a tangled scar at the top of her thigh.

 

You recognize the pattern of it; not quite burn, not quite cut. Not quite healed, not quite new. It’s indiscernible, a mess of lines that could almost be the rounds of letters. There’s a familiar curve here and there. You brashly wonder if, given time and darkness and nothing between you, you could read it.

 

“Oh,” Laura whispers, following your sightline. “Ugly, isn’t it?” She shifts a blanket over it just as Danny peers over, curious. Laura gives you a small smile, like a secret.

 

You sit down without a word and refrain from passing judgment on the movie that’s so bad, it’s a little horrific. You call this uncharacteristic show of mercy _pity_.

 

Your soulmate might be dead or gone or just as damned as you are, but at least you know a _name_.

 

(You help settle the blanket around Laura when she scrunches down in her seat. Danny glares at you, but whatever. She can deal.)

 

* * *

“It’s not ugly,” you clarify the next day. Laura starts from where she’s seated on her bed, bare legs curled up underneath her as she puzzles her way through Dante. She sets down the book with a frown and shifts her weight, switching her ankles to the opposite side.

 

“Come again?”

 

“Your- name. Scar. Whatever. It’s not ugly, just a little fucked up.”

 

It’s an apt description for a lot of things. Laura just gives you a thin smile.

 

“Thanks. Sometimes I think I can make out letters, and other times it’s so warped that I-” She shakes her head. “I swear that it changes.”

 

“I don’t think that’s possible.”

 

“I didn’t think so either, but for a year it ended in an _A_. Then one day it didn’t look like anything at all.” You’ve never seen Laura look quite this serious. Not while you’re whole and not dripping blood everywhere, anyway. “And sometimes I think it could almost begin with an _M_ , but then I wake up and it doesn’t look a thing like an _M_. I’ve spent my whole life trying to figure out her name.”

 

Something riots inside you, straining and snapping against your ribcage.

 

“How’d you know she’s a girl when you don’t even know her name?” You hear the words like someone else is asking them. You think your lips have gone numb.

 

“I just do.” She shrugs. “Besides, how many guys do you know whose names end in _A_? How many girls?”

 

Your insides hurt. Your head hurts. Laura- name ending in _A_ \- has a point.

 

* * *

“Do you think we’ll ever find love? Since yours is gone and mine is… lost.”

 

“How the fuck should I know, cutie?”

 

* * *

There’s a final battle of sorts the week before second semester ends. Your siblings riot their way through town and even Maman comes out to play, hands sluicing blood every which way. You stick to your strengths, stepping in and out of other fights with ease, ever the choosey executioner. You stay well away from your mother, and not only because she picks the oldest, toughest opponents.

 

You’re scared you won’t choose the right person to save. You don’t even know who that would be. You’re too much of a coward to find out.

 

By the end of it, you’ve gained a whopping kilometer in territory on top of taking back all of your earlier losses. Maman looks pleased beyond belief, watching the corpses of shifters move one last time from animal to human form. Two of your younger siblings are among them, pale and twisted. Maman does not seem to mind.

 

“Guess that human of yours is safe for now,” she cackles at you in her retreat. “You are dismissed to go where you please. I will call you when I need you next.”

 

You and Will stand next to each other as she turns her back on both of you. His left arm hangs limply. There are rakings across your back that dribble blood into the waistband of your jeans.

 

“Well fought, my children.”

 

You and Will leave separately, silently. There is nothing more for you here.

 

* * *

Laura finds you packing.

 

“Hey Carm, did you want to go to the- Carmilla, what are you doing?”

 

You thought it was obvious. You tell her as much.

 

“I don’t understand,” she says, a frown forming.

 

That’s nice.

 

“Carmilla, _look at me_.”

 

Your books you stack reverently. Your clothes you flip in without regard.

 

“God- _damn it_.”

 

Her hands are on your shoulders then and you wince as she hits the bandages you’ve got under your cotton tee, strips of gauze sloppily pinned against your wounds with the help of a mirror and the athletic tape you nicked off some jock on his way to the gym. Laura must sense that you’re hurt because her grip loosens, but that doesn’t prevent her from trying to spin you around.

 

You’re over three hundred years old and infinitely stronger than her in ways you couldn’t even put to words. It’s more of a muscle memory than anything, but still you turn.

 

Laura looks- well, she looks _pissed_. Her mouth is all pinched up and so are her eyebrows, the lines bitter and angry where they are usually soft. You keep your features as blank as you can, even as the slick sensation of blood running down your back distracts you.

 

Fuck. You should’ve known better than to wear your favourite shirt so soon after battle.

 

“You can’t leave.”

 

Laura’s words drag you out of distraction, floating back to the surface. You scoff a laugh because really? No one outside of Maman has managed to contain you in three centuries, and this whelp-

 

“Don’t you laugh at me. Do you think I’m an idiot?” Her look is indistinguishable now and the uncertainty that floods you because of that freezes you in place. Laura swallows: you can hear the pull of her throat and the way it shifts the blood thundering along the lines of her neck makes your whole body _whine_ for her.

 

You could not possibly miss the way her eyes bob down to your chest and back up. Now, everything in you screams.

 

“Let me see,” she says. “Please.”

 

A hand flies up to your name, unbidden, the bruised fingertips pressing against the knot of scarring that you can easily feel through the thin tissue of your shirt. You shake your head so violently that you’re rendered dizzy.

 

“No.”

 

“Not- not your name, Carmilla.” Laura’s features soften. You recognize the tone as the one that she uses whenever you’re in pain or troubled. You hate her keenly for a second, just for having a special voice for a monster. “You’re hurt. Let me see.”

 

“I don’t need you to patch me up,” you say, and it comes out a snarl. You still can’t move, but you feel like a cornered animal, snapping and hissing and spitting to keep away a threat. Laura doesn’t flinch.

 

“I know that.” Her hands reach out and they’re impossibly warm against your shoulders. You wonder stupidly if you feel cool to her touch. “It’ll be okay. Turn around, Carmilla.”

 

You hate her. You hate yourself. You do as you’re told, and her fingers leave trails of fire where they draw your shirt up and over your head.

 

* * *

She changes your bandages with a tenderness that only mortals possess. She gets you blood, rinses the stains from your favourite shirt, brings you the book you’ve been chipping away at in your abundant spare time. You let her. You let her, and the skin between your breasts hurts worse than your back.

 

Your back heals. Her name stays. You give up.

 

* * *

In the end, it’s LaFontaine who approaches you. They sneak up on you as you read in a little copse of trees on the corner of the quad, your favourite place to hide while everyone thinks you’re doing something you’re supposed to be. You’re reading Plath because you hate everyone and everything.

 

They clear their throat and you nearly choke on your shout of surprise, dropping Plath and whirling around with the vicious speed of your kind. To their credit, LaF barely even flinches, and holds their ground with hands rolled into fists, one of which is curled around a lit lantern to help them along in the dusk.

 

If you had to pick a favourite loser, it’d be LaF. This is why.

 

“Hey, Carmilla. Got a second?”

 

You make a show of lifting your eyebrow and glancing around at the empty space. You lean over to pick up Plath and toss her onto your bag where it is tucked between two roots.

 

“Let me just put this party on hold for you.”

 

“O-kay. Cool. Yeah.” LaF drags a hand over their neck and clumsily sits down on the grass next to the little dent where you had been before they surprised you. They set the lantern down and it illuminates both of you in light and shadow. “So… about the whole names business.”

 

Every inclination that you had to sit next to them dies. You lick at your fangs and feel a thrill when LaF’s eyes follow the point of your tongue.

 

“I’m not talking about soulmates with you, LaFontaine.” They press their hands together, rubbing a thumb over the flat, healed scrawl of _Lola_ that sits over a tangle of veins and nerves. You’ve seen them do this often. You think it’s a nervous tick.

 

“That’s totally fair, and I kind of assumed you’d say that. So I… thought maybe you could just listen to me talk.”

 

Your eyes narrow. You stalk over to Plath and your bag.

 

“No way, no how. Bye now.”

 

You duck beneath the branches of a tree as LaF sighs.

 

“It says Laura, doesn’t it?”

 

You trip and flail in a way that is far too reminiscent of the first time Laura spoke to you. Your bag and Plath tumble away from your hands and you don’t bother to retrieve either as you gather yourself and turn around, glaring absolute _murder_.

 

“I will _kill_ you.”

 

LaF sighs again. “I’m not going to tell her. But you might want to.”

 

You mean to laugh, but it comes out choked and wrong. “To what fucking end, exactly? What’s your game plan here anyway, _LaFontaine?_ Come talk to the creepy little vampire about her name? Let her cry about it? Convince her to tell poor little Laura so hers can finally straighten itself out to read _Monster_?”

 

“Actually, I was hoping to get as far as to make you admit it says Laura,” they say with a wry smile. “But since we’re so far ahead of that goal, I’m kind of considering exactly that.”

 

“Fuck you, LaF,” you say with as much venom as you can muster. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. Things worked out for Thing One and Thing Two; hip, hip, hooray, I’m so fucking pleased for you. But that’s not the way it always goes, okay? Not everyone’s name is connected to a fairytale.”

 

“Names change. I know what happens when they do.” You’re already moving away so you can’t see their face, but you hear the pain. “And I know what happens when you don’t give in. She’s in agony, Carmilla. She doesn’t have your tolerance and she won’t give up hope. Please, at least tell her you’re not dead. Tell her you exist. Give her peace.”

 

“See, there’s where you’re wrong, sweetheart. I _am_ dead. And there’s no peace in that.”

 

You leave. Everything burns.

 

* * *

You head to your dorm on autopilot, for lack of any better direction to take. You make it as far as the top of the staircase before you turn away. You can hear music and the quiet sound of Laura singing along, even from here. Your chest seizes. You run.

 

* * *

You stay away for two days. You throw your phone in the orange river that cuts along the edge of campus, its murky waters swallowing a piece of your forced humanity and a dozen texts from Laura, two from Perry. You don’t even bother reading them. You just drown them.

 

You wander aimlessly after that, surreptitiously checking the territory lines out of habit and feeling your way around Maman’s essence with a shiver. That’s what eventually drives you back: the longer you’re out in this town, the more you feel the bitch creeping back into your veins, and that scares you more than a conversation with LaFontaine ever will.

 

You wait until you know Laura is supposed to be in her last final exam and sneak in through the window, cat paws shifting to human before you touch the floor.

 

“There you are.”

 

For the second time in as many days, you’re so surprised that you trip. You don’t go careening into anything this time but your glare is just as potent as if you had. Laura comes out of the bathroom, smoothing down the edges of a checkered dress. It’s almost short enough to show her scar, and you allow yourself a deserved moment of distraction as you look her over.

 

Sometimes and entirely against your will, Laura makes you wonder how you would’ve turned out if not for the whole undead thing.

 

On cue, she rolls her eyes at you.

 

“Stop that. Pay attention.”

 

“I am, cutie,” you murmur, finally meeting her gaze. She looks unimpressed.

 

“Don’t you _cutie_ me. Sit your ass down.”

 

You fold your arms over your chest, cock your hip out and push your patented bored expression over your face. You make it clear that you refuse to sit. Laura huffs and her eyes skitter from the bed to the desk to you and away again.

 

“LaFontaine told me.”

 

You were expecting a curt tone, but all you get is something defeated, worn down, sombre. You lose control of your expressions and your jaw goes slack when Laura finally holds her wavering gaze to yours. Her eyes are glossy.

 

“They said- they said they promised you they wouldn’t tell, but that you stormed off and didn’t come back and they weren’t sure if you ever would. Your stuff is all here, but none of it seemed sentimental enough for you to return. I figured that if you did come back, you’d do it while I was in class, so I arranged to take my finals early. I’m glad I did.” She laughs a little; a tiny, broken thing. You feel the ache of it in your chest, in your legs, everywhere. “If I fail Comp Lit because I didn’t have the extra two days to study, I’m holding you personally responsible.”

 

You have nothing to say to that. You watch as a tear pushes against the corner of her eye. She wipes at it before it can escape and you’re immeasurably glad.

 

“Can I see it?” Her lower lip disappears between her teeth right after she asks.

 

When you don’t respond, she takes a step toward you. One step becomes two and two becomes three. You don’t move. You don’t speak. You _can’t_.

 

“Let me,” she finally murmurs, and her hands do not shake as they catch the edges of your shirt. You duck your head and loosen your stance as she guides it over your head and drops it on the floor.

 

You haven’t needed to breathe in well over three centuries, and the sob that wracks your lungs physically pains you.

 

* * *

You nearly bite her the first time she reaches out to touch. The second time she tries, you let her, and the trace of her fingertip along the graceful jag of the letter _L_ brings instant relief. Nothing hurts anymore.


	3. Together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we are, at long last: the final installment of this little adventure. i cannot thank all of you enough for the time you spent reading, leaving kudos, commenting, bookmarking, and traveling over to my tumblr to talk. you all made this so worthwhile. 
> 
> so worthwhile, in fact, that the near future may see a companion piece to this come into being. laura awaits. in the meantime, have the below, which is as full of curses as always and contains more blatant sexuality than previous chapters.
> 
> my endless gratitude to [bellatores](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Bellatores/pseuds/Bellatores), who is an incredible person and the most patient beta in the world. no thanks will ever be enough, but you have mine.

_“Where do we go from here?”_ She’d asked, palm warm where it covered the scarring. You had the sudden, idiotic urge to breathe, to make her hand rise and fall with the steady shake of your body. You resisted the urge.

 

_“I have no idea.”_  
  


 

* * *

You don’t leave Silas.

 

Students are welcome to stay on during the summer for spare courses and you assume that this is what Laura does, as the end of the semester comes and goes without a major moving event. No one bothers to come question you, the daughter of the Dean, as to why you’re still here, although you know it’s just a matter of time before the Dean herself notices that you haven’t left.

 

You try to not let that trouble you. Will thinks you’re a fool, but the feeling is mutual, and you buy a small mountain of books from a local secondhand store and line the crevices of shelves with the written word. Laura watches you quietly from where she appears to have built a semi-permanent study cave of sorts on her bed, surrounded as she is by blankets and pillows and notebooks.

 

You think she has a summer course, but you’re not certain. You don’t ask and she doesn’t tell, just slips out of the room with a book now and again and returns in time.

 

You try to have a mug of something waiting for her, a small plate of cookies laid out. You’re _trying_.

 

(Trying what, you have no idea. You just know you’re trying.)

 

* * *

If there’s anything you’ve learned over the past few hundred years, it’s that nothing stays the same.

 

Well, that and falling in love will inevitably hurt like a _bitch_ , but fuck if that’s relevant right now.

 

You pass through the first two weeks of summer with little to no mess as far as Laura is involved. You always assumed that she’d be pushy if she ever found out what slept hidden over and in your breastbone, but she’s been surprisingly silent on the matter. Sure, sometimes you look up and she’s staring at you, eyes lost to thought, but she shakes her head when you call her on it and goes back to her papers and books. You go back to yours. It’s a weird sort of peace, but it’s the safest you’ve felt in centuries.

 

Trust Laura to bring that crashing down, as predictable as the tides.

 

* * *

You walk out of the shower one day, groggy and waterlogged, to find Laura back earlier than expected and sitting on her bed. It’s not the strangest occurrence in the world, but you reflexively clutch your towel a little tighter, trying to remember just how healed your body is and whether or not you’ve any scars on display.

 

You don’t think so. You’re mad at yourself for even thinking about this.

 

You like your body, always have. You’ve flaunted it more times than you could count. Two months ago, you might’ve done the same- just to get a rise out of Laura, which it no doubt would’ve done admirably. But now, now-

 

Now you’re just worried she’ll _actually_ look. You can’t have that.

 

So you walk quickly over to where your dresser stands and pin the cloth of the towel firmly over the side of one breast before you begin flipping through shirts. You’ve just found one and turn to retreat to the bathroom when suddenly, without any warning at all, Laura is standing in front of you.

 

She swallows and everything in you burns- well, no. _Tingles_. You swallow, too.

 

“Can I help you, cupcake?”

 

“Are we really never going to talk about this?”

 

There it is, the line you’ve been waiting for, and you’ve been waiting for it to make you turn and run; to make your dead heart clench and your muscles leap. Instead, all it does it turn you weak. Your knees want to give and if you weren’t so intensely aware of your current state, you’d let them. You’d sink to the floor like the mess of blood and leftover chemistry you’ve become. Instead, you hold your ground, your feet spreading a little as you try to posture.

 

“I don’t know. Are we?”

 

It is the least intelligent comeback you could’ve imagined. You wonder at who you are.

 

“Can we try?” Laura’s hand creeps down to rub at her thigh and you feel the answer stir against your own skin, radiating out from your chest. Your head is nodding without your permission.

 

Everything is without your permission these days. Even- no, especially- when it comes to Laura.

 

“Let me-” you begin before faltering. You make your way to the bathroom on limbs that shake like a baby deer’s first steps. Laura lets you go and when you come back, she’s seated on your bed.

 

You sit. You don’t know what else to do.

 

“So. You’re my-”

 

“You can’t expect anything from me.” Fuck, the ways in which you mean that- but Laura might just get it, because her head tilts and her lips thin but she doesn’t say anything, doesn’t combat the statement, just lets you haul in a breath that you haven’t needed since the sixteenth century. “I mean it, Laura. I don’t know- I just can’t.”

 

“Can’t what?” Those lips quirk in a little smirk, one that acts like it knows you. The thought shoves its way into your mind, unbidden and unwelcome and so, _so_ very true- _maybe it does_. “Sit next to me and have a conversation?”

 

“Laura,” you start, and it’s _so_ _weak_ that you feel your fangs prick your bottom lip in a panic. Your mouth is open, she can see everything, she can see everything that you are and-

 

She leans in, slowly but surely, and the slip of your violent mouth against her softness makes your whole body shudder in a groan.

 

(Laura tastes like spun sugar, like the harsh bite of vanilla extracted from the source, like nothing and everything you’ve ever imagined in your life.)

 

You _fall_.

 

* * *

You don’t talk about this either, but sometimes Laura comes back and rewards the offerings you’ve left out with the press of her mouth and a small hand wrapped firmly around the bone of your hip. It takes everything in you to keep from ravishing her right then and there, but you manage.

  

For a while, anyway.

 

* * *

You take to sleeping facing her bed, and she yours. The conversations stretch long the night. Usually you would roam the town and now the sight of the dawn burning the edges of your thick curtains is a newfound dread. You shuffle deeper into your duvet and eye the line of Laura’s throat when she yawns mid-sentence. She’s asking you about a time long before she was born.

 

“You always knew.”

 

You nod, then correct yourself because Laura _still_ can’t see in the dark, no matter how much she hangs around a useless vampire like you.

 

“Yes. Your name has been irksome for several hundred years, cupcake.”

 

She stifles another yawn and your body feels like it’s leaping in place. You breathe in and now it is full of purpose: you can smell the warmth of her skin from several feet away.

 

“What’s that like?”

 

You pause, considering her question. She has never known your name with certainty, a hell of its own special making.

 

“Bothersome.”

 

Her smile- _damn_ the last remaining shred of your humanity, crunched deep down between the bones of your ribcage- is radiant. You smile back, foreign and pathetic.

 

* * *

Somehow, you end up spending the dusk with LaFontaine, the two of you working in silence amongst the archives. You have a tower of books in front of you that you’re decently certain is taller than your companion. You delight in telling them so.

 

They roll their eyes in response (you like to think that all the eye-rolling in the group is because of your influence and it makes you oddly proud) and budge the precarious collection over to make room for an armful of advanced physics texts. You eye the spines with an interest you’ll never admit to, strangely pleased at the level of complexity.

 

“That’s a good one,” you say, tapping one painted nail against a book you could probably quote in three languages if you felt so inclined. You don’t. LaF looks over at you in mild interest and flips open a notebook already warped from the hard press of their pen.

 

“Yeah, it’s a favourite of mine, too.”

 

You don’t bother asking why they’re going through it again if they’re read it enough times to mark it as a favourite because _who actually cares_ , but you make space for them to sit a little more comfortably instead of being squished against one of the table’s edges. You lapse back into silence and the only sound is the occasional howl or creak from somewhere else in the library.

 

Honestly, this place is a fucking mess.

 

Eventually, LaF stands to stretch (your muscles beg you to do the same, but you’re just about to decimate this translation and you can’t be bothered to listen to your body’s feeble demands) and then speaks.

 

“You’re going to take her away from us one day, aren’t you?”

 

You groan and set your pen down on top of the ink you’ve smeared. Fuck being left-handed. “Are you always the group’s official breaker of silences on topics that nobody wants to talk about?”

 

You’re met with the same calculating look as ever. “Yes.”

 

“What a pity. It’s kind of annoying.”

 

“So are you,” they reason. “That’s why we’re friends.”

 

The word sticks to the inside of your ribs and you huff a breath, just to show them how irritating you find this whole scenario. Their gaze doesn’t waver so you push the pen around your paper and try to think of the easiest way to say this.

 

“Maybe,” you finally concede. “But if I do, know that it’s Laura’s idea, and not mine.”

 

LaF considers you for a few more moments before nodding, apparently satisfied, and begins gathering up their materials.

 

“C’mon, I’ve had enough physics for one day. Wanna see how long I can stand up to your drinking habit?”

 

You smile, a razor’s edge in your mouth.

 

“You’re on.”

 

* * *

LaFontaine leaves the next week, citing eyes tired from studying relentlessly and the inability to continue dating someone who has never been to an international Comic Con event. Perry waves goodbye from the front seat of the cab that will deliver them to the airport and Laura returns the gesture, shouting “text me when you’ve landed!” and standing on her tiptoes for some reason. You shove your hands further into the pockets of your slouched jeans and nod at no one in particular.

 

You wait until the back of the cab has disappeared around a corner before turning to Laura, your mouth open to say something snide, but the look in her eyes quiets you. They’re gleaming and her lips are pulled into a form resembling a smirk. All of your words die on your tongue.

 

“Ready for our weekend plans?”

 

You didn’t know you had plans, but you know better than to interrupt a girl who looks like she has something wicked up her sleeve.

 

* * *

So, you _may_ have slightly overestimated how wicked Laura can be.

 

Turns out _plans_ involve getting dressed up and letting her take you out on the town. You’ve no desire to walk around streets that you’ve wetted with blood, but the gleam is back in Laura’s eyes when you walk out of the bathroom in the dress she picked out for you and- who actually fucking cares how much blood you’ve spilled?

 

* * *

You go to dinner and it’s strange, for lack of a better term.

 

For one thing, you order food and drink like a normal human, picking based off of taste (which you have retained, thank you very much and fuck _you_ , inaccurate vampire portrayals) and Laura’s recommendation. You wonder aloud how she even knows what’s good here and are rewarded with a light blush. She mumbles something about a previous date and you down half your glass of wine just to remain polite.

 

If there’s an awkward moment afterward, it passes. The image of Laura’s neck flexing as she sips her water is more than enough to hush you.

 

She signs for the bill to a chorus of protests from you and insists on opening the door as you leave. You’d bitch, but she’s obviously trying and you’re no expert on these things, so you let her hand rest warmly against the small of your back as she guides you out into the night. You turn toward the car you didn’t even know she owned, but her fingertips press you toward the street that leads to whatever semblance of downtown that this dingy little city possesses.

 

“Humour me?” She asks before you can question her and _God_ , will you ever manage to speak around her again? She’s biting her lip and holding out her hand for you to take, which you do. Your fingers lace together and you walk in silence for a few blocks before-

 

“I’ve never gone on a date,” you blurt out, inelegant. You feel so _stupid_.

 

“I know,” she murmurs, squeezing your hand, and giggles at the way your face lights up without your permission when you see where she is taking you next.

 

* * *

You will be fucked before you admit this aloud, but you _love_ dancing. You’re pretty damn good at it too, and Laura laughs breathlessly when you spin her back into your chest to the pleasing thump of a rhythm that would’ve been considered obscene not fifty years ago.

 

“One of the only good things about being born in an era of royalty,” you grumble into her ear over the bass that fills your body. She _tsks_ and wraps a hand around the back of your neck.

 

“I didn’t know they taught salsa in the sixteenth century.”

 

They obviously didn’t and besides, this is a _tango_ , but you can’t be bothered to correct her.

 

* * *

The night ends with Laura laughing on your arm, the two of you stumbling back into your room and congratulating yourselves on making it back without breaking an ankle while navigating the stairs in heels.

 

You’ve had more practice in heels than you care to say, but Laura is clumsy and maybe a little tipsy from the two shots that you sneaked to her in the bathroom of the salsa club, so you offer your arm as you walk and press a kiss to her cheek once both pairs of heels are safely lined up against the wall.

 

“I had- thank you,” you say quietly. “That was nice.” You don’t what else to say to a girl who pays attention to your likes and dislikes, who passes off your general bitchy demeanor on a daily basis, who takes you dancing and doesn’t mind that she herself is completely dreadful at it. She even seems to look past how long it took you to even say her name, and that’s just-

 

“Just nice?” Laura’s voice is teasing and you’d think that she’s just a lightweight, but the look in her eyes is serious.

 

“Very nice,” you amend, dodging her shoving arms. “Ow, hey, mean!”

 

“I’m not mean,” she says, and you have a rebuttal all ready to go but then she is leaning forward into your space and her lips are against yours and everything goes silent.

 

Everything, of course, except _every last_ part of you, and you’re pressing up against her and meeting the wall before you know what you’re doing. You’ve kissed her before, _obviously_ , but this is different, with her hands in your hair and her hips trying valiantly to shift against the minimal friction your position is offering. You groan deep in your throat when her tongue strokes against your lips and then against the tips of your canines, still flat. You’re surprised that they still are, and it pulls you from her.

 

“Laura, listen, I-”

 

“Do you want me?” Your mouth opens because _how can you fucking not_ , when her blunt nails are scratching over the nape of your neck and one of her thighs has slipped between yours? How can you not, when her name is carved into your chest, the letters healing more and more with every passing day?

 

How can you not, when she kisses you sweetly and whispers _please, Carmilla, let me have you_?

 

How can you _not_?

 

You want to take your time because you’re certain you’ve read a million different passages in a thousand different languages that this is the only way to treat your other. You had imagined (yes, _imagined_ , because some part of you still remembers how to pretend up some good in the world) moving to a canopy bed like the one from your past, opulent and comfortable in front of the fire, using your cursed strength to lower her to expensive sheets. You had imagined removing clothing with soft touches and hungry looks, the blush on her cheeks when you lower your mouth.

 

She does blush when your hands pull her dress away, and again when she unsticks the zipper of yours (“Could’ve picked a better outfit, cupcake,” you can’t help but quip when she curses it to hell). She breathes out an _oh_ when she sees you and you fidget, because you are in a dorm room in a place that you hate and you are all too aware of just how young you look, but never will be again.

 

“Oh,” Laura breathes, and stretches her hands out for you.

 

You follow them down.

 

* * *

Another thing you hadn’t imagined: leaning over Laura and letting your fangs scrape her skin. You’d worried, but she’d arched under you and hissed _yes_ , so you closed your eyes and willed yourself away from her erratic pulse. Laura moves under you, spine shifting and legs moving up to wrap around you, and finally, something _familiar_ , when-

 

You blink up at the ceiling, momentarily disoriented, and Laura’s hand pressing against her own name is what brings you back.

 

“I don’t-” She falters for the first time that evening, kiss-swollen lip disappearing between the even, blunt row of her white teeth, and you cannot help your distraction. “You know I-”

 

“Cutie,” you murmur, reaching for her. She rests her cheek against your palm, warm and alive and somehow, inexplicably _yours_. “We don’t have to.”

 

She shakes her head before you can finish. “No. Just- let me, and if you don’t like something, tell me to stop, okay?”

 

She whispers _okay?_ one last time before nudging your thighs open with her nose, and you have to bite down on your own hand at the first touch of her tongue.

 

You see stars when you come.

 

* * *

Remember those things you believe in, how nothing ever stays the same and love will hurt like a bitch in the end? Yeah.

 

You never were very good at remembering your lessons before it’s too late.

 

* * *

You come back one day soon after and your room smells of Maman. It’s there before you even open the door, overwhelming and rancid, and the urge to turn and run is overpowering. You spin on your heel and make it to the stairwell before biting out a strangled scream and going back to the door of your room. Images of broken bodies flash before your eyes as your hand hits the doorknob and you know you would’ve smelled Laura’s blood by now had it been spilled, but you can’t help it. You’re shaking when you finally get the key to catch.

 

You scan the room in a panic, chewing your tongue, fingers flying and clumsy over the books and sheets and packages of cookies. She is _everywhere_ , and you know.

 

 _Leave_ , your body screams. _Do it now, before you destroy her._

 

* * *

Laura comes back from… wherever, notebook in hand, and you thrust the bag of her favourite things into her arms.

 

“Carmilla, what-”

 

“Those wounds,” you say in a rush, because you packed Laura’s things before your own and you’re already turning to get what you absolutely cannot part with into your own bag. “Those wounds that I come back with, the bad ones? They are from my mother.”

 

You can practically hear the snap within Laura and it makes you shake.

 

“Excuse you,  _what_?”

 

In goes Vonnegut, that rot bastard. “Not- _from_ her, okay? But at her will, or whatever, and she knows I stayed here with you and she was here today and I cannot- _I cannot let her have you too_.”

 

You are a coward, always have been. You tremble. You drop a book before its time and Laura catches it as if she were the immortal. She slides it into your bag for you and guides your shoulders around as gently as the night she confronted you. As always, you let her.

 

(And that’s the real problem here, isn’t it?)

 

“So… we go.” You open your mouth to speak, but Laura shushes you with a shake of her head. “So we go, right now, you and me. We have what we need.”

 

“Your father,” you say in a voice that is nearly silent, because that’s all you could think of as you packed her bag and prayed for the first time in centuries. “Your father will worry.”

 

“He’ll do that anyway. We can call him when we’re safe.” She’s trying to be brave and she’s succeeding admirably for the most part, but you can see something unspeakable in her eyes and it makes your stomach drop.

 

“We will never be safe,” you say, and it’s true.

 

She takes in a breath and oh, gods, her name is etched more permanently than you’d ever known. “Then we’ll call when it’s not. For now, let’s just go.”

 

You know there will be hell to pay later (Laura does _nothing_ quietly, and she will not sacrifice the lives she is invested in, not for the world) but for now, your brave girl helps you pack your books without needing to ask which ones are most important.

 

“Thank you, _”_ you whisper later on the train that feels like a death sentence, and press a kiss into her hair. She clutches your hand and you imagine the pain.

 

* * *

You make it to Regensburg before you feel the claws in your chest lessen their grip. You spend some of the centuries of bank interest on a small flat near the forest, no questions asked thanks to your fluency and charm, and the waiting game continues.

 

You are not good with time. Laura tells you that three months have passed. You hum and tack a calendar to the wall for both of your sakes. Four months from now, on a day of no significance to the outside world, a red circle interrupts the neat lines. Four months, you promise in a kiss, and Laura’s father can have the peace of knowing that his beloved child is alive.

 

You love her too, you understand his agony.

 

The difference is that you hate yourself for it, and that will never change.

 

* * *

With all the assumed grace of the slightly strange but permanently cheerful, Laura ventures out into the city. Her German is halting but understandable enough by the time the circled day arrives.

 

“Your accent is atrocious,” you tell her with a smile when she tries a new phrase on you, and she puzzles over _atrocious_ before throwing a pillow at you. You catch it with ease.

 

“Go call your father,” you say in the soft tone that is reserved for Laura and Laura only.

 

She leaves with the burner you bought in the hour before sunrise and doesn’t come back for a full day.

 

* * *

When she comes back, every last part of you exhales and inhales, the stretch in your lungs a beautiful and terrible thing. You can smell the salt on her cheeks from where you’re seated on the chaise you bought together. You don’t say a word, just let her curl up next to you and start crying anew.

 

* * *

“Will you turn me?” She asks between sobs, and everything in you _aches_. You let the bruise of your kiss answer for you.

 

You were never good with words, anyway.

 

* * *

You both outlive everyone she loves.

 

The years pass and twice you are called back to Maman, Laura’s vice grip cracked around the thin bones of your wrist. Twice you go, and twice you lay waste to towns, hands leaving carnage in the wake of your might.

 

Will dies, finally and in a rut of glory, and you bury him in the shadow of your retreating mother. You vow to end her one day, when the taste of Laura’s humanity isn’t so fresh on your lips.

 

Your girl greets you, as always, in the front of your home, this time a villa on the edge of the French coast. She likes it here, likes catching the last whispers of sunset as the sun moves beneath the ocean, and you bask in the days where almost nothing pains you. You drink her in and marvel at the smooth plane of her name across your breast.

 

Then, with all the aching care that you can muster, you ease her down to the mattress and carve your name with your tongue and fingertips and the force of your pleas, your lips tracing the firmness of what you’ve grown to know. You find it in the hollow of her cold throat and the clench of her hands and in the way she still, after all these years, finds the air to whisper _I love you, I love you so_ , as you pull her apart and render her an undone mess, the proof of her sticky between your bodies.

 

 _Carmilla_ , you write against the very top of her thigh, the realness and terror of what you are etched forever into her flesh.

 

 _Carmilla_.

**Author's Note:**

> come visit me at tumblr. same name, same story, more pictures.


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